Happy Mother's Day!

It's a pink Sunday as Major League Baseball goes to bat against breast cancer. Garrett Atkins' mother, Diana, beat cancer, and 14 years later she's still going strong. Garrett couldn't feel better:

"I'm definitely blessed," he [Atkins] said. "I still get to have her around. A lot of people lose their moms or their sisters or loved ones when something like that happens. To tack on an extra 14 years so far, the things she's been able to watch me and my sister accomplish is something she's real happy about. I'd like to help in any way I can."

Clint Barmes had to deal with his mother's cancer back in 2006, but things are better now:

"During that time I didn't want to talk about it. But it was very scary at one point," Barmes said. "We are lucky that they caught it in an early stage. She's doing really well now."

And Ryan Spilborghs has this message for his mother (click on his name at the bottom of the right column):

This Mother's Day is special because you've been sick, but you're on the road to recovery which is great. This offseason, I realized how awesome you are. I've gotten to spend more time with you every day. You're going through some stuff that's painful but you always have a smile on your face and it puts everything in perspective. A bad day at baseball is not really that bad of a day at all. I'm so proud to be your son. You make me realize how special life is every day. You're my hero.

-----

The Padres aren't as interested in Cory Sullivan after learning that his salary is $1M (end of article) this season.

Greg Reynolds makes his first major league start. His mother will be in attendance (see link to Barmes' story).

Greg Reynolds' MLB debut on Mother's Day tomorrow will set the club mark for the quickest ascent by a pitcher to the big league club from their draft date. It's a mark that figures to get broken later this summer by our 2007 first round pick, Casey Weathers, but it's a great accomplishment for Greg and I'm really excited about watching that game. If he's to win it, he'll have to do it without the bat of Matt Holliday aiding him, as Big Daddy is expected to get Mom's day off. Luckily, thanks to Aaron Cook's performance last night, the Rockies only need to scratch out a win in one of these next two games to get their first series win since the middle of April.

That last linked Troy Renck article also includes Clint Hurdle's insistence that Yorvit's the primero uno catcher on the squad. Torrealba's one for four night last night leaves him ranked #64 in offensive contribution out of the 71 catchers to play in the MLB this year in VORP. As I mentioned earlier this week, Chris Iannetta is the sixth best. What's more, as the four guys he left on base last night kind of indicate, Torrealba has been terrible in the clutch, being the worst on the team in win probability added. Iannetta has been the Rockies best when it comes to coming up with the big hit when we need it. I'm not saying, I'm just saying...

Anyway, with the Padres losing five straight, the Rockies can put serious hurt on their chances of being involved in another play-in game with us this year by winning these next two. Pushing them out of contention will also have some indirect benefits around the trade deadline by adding another seller to the pool. Let's show a killer instinct this weekend, guys. BTW, speaking of the Padres, before our series with them in April, I did a Q & A with Ducksnorts' Geoff Young that I completely spaced linking here in a busy week. Ducksnorts is one of two must-read Padres blogs along with Gaslamp Ball, and probably the best place to learn about our rival. Even though the Q and A was in April, the questions were on general themes so the answers still apply.

Did something happen the last time these two teams met? Well, whatever did happen, neither team "much cares to think about" what happened after that night.

Hurdle jabbed at the reporters after being asked about Jake Peavy:

"How do you think the Padres feel about facing Aaron Cook?" Hurdle replied. "We've got Cook going. I feel good about that."

After those April showers of losses, why shouldn't the Rockies become May flowers? We have our best starter going against the Padres' best starter. At PETCO Park. How many innings does this game go?

When the owner says something, you probably can count on it happening:

"We will put him [Greg Reynolds] out there and see what he can do. He would have been up here last year if not for the shoulder injury," Monfort said. "In a perfect world, we would rather have him stay in Triple-A. But we aren't living in a perfect world. We have some issues."

Can we speed up time and have it be Sunday today? I'm excited for this debut.

Tracy Ringolsby says the Rockies have interest in prep shortstop Anthony Hewitt.

Doug Davis is cancer-free.

Colorado Springs: W 10-1

Apparently all Ian Stewart needed to get out of his slump was to get out of the state of Tennessee. After going 1 for 30 in the Volunteer State against Nashville and Memphis, Stewart's now 4 for 8 with three HR's since returning to the Springs, including two three run shots yesterday. Check this out, Stewart is almost exactly one tenth  the man he normally is, an average of .033 compared  to .330 everywhere else, when he visits the lands we call Opry and Grace.

Meanwhile, Greg Reynolds couldn't get out of the third inning for the second straight start, but for the second straight start it was due to events entirely out of his control. After his previous start had him pitching only two and two-thirds innings in Memphis before a game got suspended by rain, yesterday he got pulled after two innings showing his usual efficiency -just 23 pitches thrown- in order to make his MLB debut on Sunday. Congratulation Greg! We certainly wish you're up for good.

Tulsa: Postponed

Modesto: L 10-6

Bakersfield scored in six of the first seven innings against Simon Ferrer and Tommy Baumgardner in an unpleasant mid-day contest for the home team. Michael McKenry homered and had two hits, but had more trouble than usual controlling the running game, allowing three out of four stolen base attempts to be successful off him. Michael Paulk, Cole Garner and Jay Cox each also had a pair of hits. Cox is sporting his new number, Garner's sporting a new 'do . As long as they both keep hitting like that, they can run around naked for all I care. Of course, the Nuts front office and the Rockies developmental staff might draw the line there.

Asheville: W 9-3

Since most of the minor leagues, including the SAL, award playoff spots to both the first and second half champions, this series with first place Charleston could prove pivotal to the second place Tourists playoff aspirations. Things got off to a good start with the win yesterday, as Asheville climbed to just a half game back. Connor Graham didn't have quite the dominant start he had his last time out, but was still effective through five and two thirds, striking out six and allowing just three runs.

He actually was just about as dominant until that sixth inning which saw him give up one of his four hits and two of his three walks before leaving with the bases loaded and two outs. Craig Rodriguez came on and gave up a two run double to raise Graham's ERA a bit. A third potential run was caught at the plate by a good relay between center fielder Michael Mitchell, Everth Cabrera and Lars Davis for the third out. Rodriguez and Craig Baker clamped down from there, however, and the Tourists offense poured on. Brian Rike, Kevin Clark and Jeff Cunningham each had three hits and everybody else save Cabrera (who walked once) had at least one in the romp.

I'll write the Pebble Report and the promised (and late) positives at each level report later, but I wanted to get the conversation going with this first.

First of all, a win is a win is a win, if I might mangle Gertrude Stein a bit, but one run squeakers like last night's aren't a very good indication that the team has turned a corner just yet. Unless a team's as lucky as the D-backs circa 2007, and we all know the Rockies in 2008 aren't anywhere close to that fortunate, seasons aren't won or lost by the close contests. Instead, a team's mettle will be measured in how many times it clobbers the opponent, compared to how many times the clobbering is inflicted upon it. Last season the Rockies split their one run contests, 19-19, while going 29-18 in games decided by five runs or more. This year, they're more or less even again in one run games, 7-6 after last night, but are just 5-9 in the blowouts. If the team is any good, it will become evident when they turn that second figure to a plus.

In order to do that, the Rox will need more innings like last night's eighth -to make a blowout you typically need at least two big innings in a game- and more pitching performances like those Aaron Cook's been giving us. This is all self evident, but stick with me and hopefully I'll get somewhere with this.

So let's go back to the set-up of last night's eighth. The top of the lineup -Willy T, Q, and Holliday- were set to face rookie Kyle McClellan. Taveras hasn't been hitting well this year, Quintanilla's been ripping since his call-up, and Holliday just rips, so the outcome of the first three was sort of predictable. Taveras struck out against the rookie, Quintanilla shot a groundball through the defense up the middle, and Holliday lined a triple deep the other way against a slightly shifted outfield. The only problem with this picture is that we had a guy who's getting out more than two thirds of the time -but he saved a run or two defensively last night- leading off. That first batter, first out scenario always drastically reduces a team's scoring chances.

Anyway, let's go on: next up, Helton. At this point to minimize the damage, La Russa used a common strategy against the Rockies, switching in your best LHP for the Helton/Atkins/Hawpe trio. With one out already, all Randy Flores needed to do was retire the two lefties to end the inning, he could pitch around Atkins. Helton popped out weakly, Atkins walked, and then Hurdle went to this best bat off the bench, Ryan Spilborghs, with two outs to try and get Holliday home. Now LaRussa had an issue, he could stick with Flores, who's allowing a .417 OBP to right handers this year, and has given up a .310/.387/.475 line against them in his career, or he could go to Jason Isringhausen, who had been warming up for the ninth. This was the first time Isringhausen had entered in the eighth inning this season, and this is where I've got to give Hurdle some credit for making TLR squirm. Batting Spilly was absolutely the right decision, and we can probably be thankful that Spilborghs in his career had been a perfect one for one with an RBI single against Flores for making it happen. If it had been Baker or Torrealba with the lone hit off Randy, Hurdle might have been tempted to use one of them instead.

At any rate, Spilly singles in Holliday, and Iannetta triples in both Spilborghs and Atkins to give us that lead. It would make sense that the five players responsible for that rally -Quintanilla, Holliday, Atkins, Spilborghs and Iannetta are five of our best performers this year. All we were lacking was a cameo by Scott Podsednik. So there's the secret to having big innings: GIVE YOUR BEST HITTERS THE MOST CHANCES.

Huh, I thought it might be harder than that.

On to pitching. Also important in manufacturing blowouts is giving up fewer than four runs a game, and so far we've only had one starter capable of this. The big news yesterday was that Greg Reynolds got pulled from his start in Colorado Springs in order to be ready to go Sunday in his MLB debut. Let's make a list of starters this season:

1. Jeff Francis
   
2. Kip Wells
   
3. Aaron Cook
4. Ubaldo Jimenez
5. Mark Redman
   
6. Franklin Morales
7. Jorge De La Rosa
8. as of Sunday, Greg Reynolds

Jason Hirsh will make it nine when he returns. If we trade or troll the waiver wires for someone like Josh Fogg, we'll reach double digits. Believe it or not with all the turnover that occurred at the end of the season, the Rockies didn't use their eighth starter in 2007 until Jimenez pitched on July 19. In that 2008 group, we've got three, soon to be four pitchers in the young, inconsistent phase of their careers, two in the old, ineffective and washed up phase, and what should be our two standbys in Cook and Francis. Francis is a veteran now, a leader, and he should be more consistent than this. Without a real step forward on what he's been doing this season, the Rockies are in trouble. You can blame the rest all you want, but the fact is we need and expect more from Jeff to be competitive. The others are actually meant to be cheap and interchangeable to the point we could stick with the hot hand, should one emerge. It's come to the point that I'm hoping that Reynolds will be that calm and stable, innings eating performer to buffet the ups and downs of the rest of the rotation and it shouldn't be that way.

Anyway, at least I know that Reynolds has the talent to be that guy, but it's a heck of a lot to ask for a rookie. Jeff, step up so the pressure's off him, okay?

In our losing, it's easy to see all the issues that will make it very difficult for this team to come back into contention in 2008 -such as how we're going to hide the evidence in regards to the disposal of Mark Redman - but it's also easy to lose sight of the promising developments that should help us make another improbable rebound this season, or at the very least compete in 2009, if it comes to that.

Let's start with Chris Iannetta. After last night, Chris -despite starting half the games of those ahead of him- is already the sixth best catcher in the majors in offensive value added according to Baseball Prospectus' VORP stat, and the rate at which he's providing that value is sixth best overall in the NL among players with over 50 AB's. Now, the guy just ahead of him in that latter category is the similarly small sampled Ronny Cedeno, so maybe it would be wise if we held off all of our glee until CDI has doubled his plate appearances, but it's starting to look like last season was the fluke in Chris' career, not the norm.

While we're talking about the rate at which offensive value is added, for the Rockies the top five (20 PA minimum, so Q and Herrera don't qualify yet) look like this:

1. Chris Iannetta .688
2. Scott Podsednik .535
3. Ryan Spilborghs .393
   
4. Matt Holliday .347
5. Clint Barmes .316

Seriously, what does it say when four of our top five offensive performers are -or at least were at the start of the season- bench players? Meanwhile -in keeping with the backwards theme- five of our six most valuable pitchers have come from the bullpen. But I was going to keep this post forward looking, so the good news is that Francis and Jimenez are improving and while Francis has already turned to a plus, Jimenez should swing that way by his next start if he keeps taking steps forward. The linked Tracy Ringolsby article says that Jason Hirsh is throwing bullpen sessions and the hope is he'll be activated by early June. Greg Reynolds is progressing and should be ready for a call-up soon as well.

All we need is to put the bench guys in, rack up some runs and win a few 12 to 10 De La Rosa and Redman starts in May, and we'll be all set. Simple.

Dave Krieger explains why we saw Yorvit Torrealba pinch hit for Scott Podsednik:

Sometimes, National League managers seem to love the double switch so much it becomes an end in itself. With Taveras having run for Iannetta earlier in the inning - a center fielder for a catcher - it was just so symmetrical to hit Torrealba for Podsednik - a catcher for a center fielder - even though Podsednik was hitting 70 points higher than Torrealba.

So much for a symmetrical move working out. A little asymmetry is not going to kill anyone.

The Rockies signed Todd Ritchie to a minor league contract and sent him to extended spring training. He last pitched in the majors during the 2004 season for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. It doesn't hurt to see what Ritchie can do, but really? Ritchie's had one good season and that was in the last century. He was a 15-game winner for the Pirates in 1999 with 3.49 ERA that season, his career low. Nice to see a guy attempt a comeback, but at 36 (37 in November) what can we expect out of him? Yes, I already know the responses to that question.

There's also a bit in the last link on Kip Wells, his surgery, and the surgery his daughter recently had.

If Todd Ritchie isn't the solution to the Rockies' pitching woes, maybe the Dragonslayer is? Or Julian Tavarez? Or Rich Harden? Or Joe Blanton? Or Kevin Millwood? The first two names are the most likely candidates to don Rockies uniforms as the club waits for Morales to show improvement, for Reynolds to be ready in a month, and for Hirsh to return from his injury. As O'Dowd says, he's looking for a guy to make a few starts between now and sometime in June. Morales makes his first Triple-A start Sunday in the meantime.

Colorado Springs: Suspended 1-1, third inning, will be completed Sunday.

Cory Sullivan hit a monstrous homerun to right for the Sky Sox to lead off the first, while Greg Reynolds got knocked in his half by a Colby Rasmus double and Brian Barden RBI single, but had a clean second inning.

Tulsa: L 8-7 (10 innings)

This was a crazy and sloppy seesaw battle that probably excited the home faithful in Arkansas, but didn't turn out so well for our Drillers. Corey Wimberly, Chris Nelson and Tony Blanco each hit singles to manufacture a run in the first, while errors by pitcher Ching Lung Lo and first baseman Jeff Kindel helped the Travelers take the lead in the third. The teams went back and forth from there, including in the final frame when Dexter Fowler walked with two outs, advanced to third on another Nelson single and scored on an error by the opposing pitcher to give the Drillers a 7-6 lead before yet another E-1 (by Ryan Mattheus) led to the winning rally. In all, the game saw six errors (four by the Drillers, including Nelson's thirteenth) , four HBP's and a wild pitch.

Blanco would finish with three hits and five runs batted in. Nelson, Wimberly and Daniel Carte each had two for the Drillers.

Modesto: L 5-3

Trevor Cahill had faced the minimum amount of Nuts possible through five, being aided by double play after plunking Daniel Mayora earlier in the game, but a pair of singles, a pair of walks and another HBP allowed Modesto to score three times in the sixth and maintain some of their diginity against the Cal League's best pitcher thus far. I'm just glad he's headed to the American League.

Speaking of headed to the AL, apparently Zach Simons took the trade that had him packing and sent Jason Grilli to us pretty hard. I feel for him and am sorry that he has to part with his friends in the organization, but professionally I think the deal gives him a much better opportunity at making an MLB club. The Tigers system had been hit hard by their trades with Atlanta and Florida this winter, while the Rockies system is filled to the brink with right handed relief guys -I know, if we have so many, how do we explain last night? I don't have an answer for you- which left Simons on the periphery of the team's attention, but not really seen as a part of their future plans.

At any rate Simons was well liked in the organization and by the media, Jason McGill reminisced about Zach after learning the news.

Asheville: W 3-0

Connor Graham just steamrolled through seven and two thirds innings, allowing just four singles and no walks while striking out nine Catfish. I really hope he's able to stay a starter, because if he could do stuff like this at upper levels, look out. Pitch limits meant Connor got pulled for Craig Baker with two out in the bottom of the eighth. Baker K'd the one guy he faced before Randall Taylor came on in the ninth to pick up his eighth save. Baker's still got an undefined K/BB ratio with sixteen strikeouts in over twelve innings this season, but zero walks. I mentioned this in a comment a while back, but Taylor's surface numbers are a little deceptive. I love the number of K's he generates, and the walks are acceptably low, but less inspiring is a very poor 18% groundball rate, and a very lucky looking batting average on balls put into play. I've seen too much sharp line drive contact off of him to make me give a full endorsement just yet. Compare that to Baker's 57% GB rate, and maybe you can understand why.

The Tourists offense themselves also managed just four hits, but it helped that three were of the extra base variety, including Warren Schaeffer's homerun. Lars Davis and Brian Rike both doubled.

If it wasn't clear before last night, it must be today: expect to see changes to the rotation. Last night's "fifth-inning fiasco" may have been the tipping point for deciding Morales' rotation status. And Wells didn't help his cause to move into the rotation after his performance last night.

Morales isn't the only one in trouble, as Ubaldo Jimenez and Mark Redman are also walking a fine line. The article speculates that if both Jimenez and Redman continue to struggle, expect Jimenez to move to the bullpen and Redman to be cut loose. If both moves happen and Franklin Morales is demoted, who does that leave as possible rotation candidates? Well, Matt Morris doesn't appear to be an option, but Josh Towers and Greg Reynolds may be promoted. However, O'Dowd doesn't  sound too enthusiastic about promoting Reynolds now:

"Towers has been good, and Reynolds had a good start last time out. We would like to give Reynolds more time down there, though," said O'Dowd of the prized prospect.

Maybe a few more good starts by Reynolds and O'Dowd will be a bit more confident in him.

But as we all know, it hasn't been just the pitching. O'Dowd also had this to say:

"Frankly we deserve to be (10-16)," said O'Dowd, who is mulling over a couple of minor trades to improve the club. "It's a lack of execution. Our starting pitchers, overall, haven't performed. We haven't gotten big hits. We haven't run the bases well. There is no rhythm to our games, offensively or defensively."

Well, we have Cook on the mound tonight. What does that mean? Good pitching, no hitting. How about changing the latter tonight, guys?

Colorado Springs: W 11-2

Greg Reynolds is definitely coming around to being the pitcher we expected him to be this year. He still has some refinement needed, but he won his second game yesterday with an eight inning outing. There were a lot of baserunners, he gave up eleven hits and walked two at Security Service Field -but the efficiency was superb nonetheless- just 107 pitches thrown allowed him to go so deep. That's just a smidgen over three pitches per batter faced. He's going to be a bullpen saving workhorse along the lines of Aaron Cook, which is something we need right now with Jimenez and Morales being so inefficient.

Ian Stewart stayed hot, getting three more hits yesterday, including his third triple. I can't decide if Seth Smith's season at the plate thus far is better than it appears because his OBP is so high (.436) and he's just not been lucky with his contact, or worse than it appears because what contact he's had has been so weak (.333 SLG). It's definitely not what I was expecting, regardless. Smith, Jonathan Herrera and Omar Quintanilla combined to go just two for thirteen with a walk at the top of the Sky Sox order yesterday, from the cleanup slot (Stewart) on, the rest of the team went fifteen for twenty-six. That kind of explains why Ian scored three but had no ribbies.

Tulsa: L 5-2

Ching Lung Lo picked up his fifth loss of the season yesterday, and his ERA is still in the double digits, but he actually pitched well and had his best start of the year with six innings, three runs allowed, four hits, a walk and an HBP and five K's. Three of the hits were doubles, but he at least kept things in the yard this time. Tulsa's issue was mainly on offense, as Dexter Fowler and Jeff Dragicevich were the only Drillers to have more than one hit. Corey WImberly had his eighth error of the season in the loss.

Modesto: W 5-2

Keith Weiser also appears to be settling in after a rough start to the season, he pitched seven innings yesterday, giving up just five hits and no walks. He struck out three. Michael McKenry's bat has been dormant of late, a zero for three day leaves his average at an uninspiring .203 so far. Meanwhile Anthony Jackson had three hits, and Michael Paulk and Victor Ferrante two apiece. Daniel Mayora's two run double highlighted a four run sixth inning that did most of the damage against Visalia after a protest by Nuts manager Jerry Weinstein rattled the Oaks pitcher.

Brian VanderBeek explains that and asked Weiser to make a comparison between himself and Brandon Hynick, noting the similarities between the two control artists.

Asheville: W 8-4

The T's won their fourth in a row. Brian Rike hit his fifth homerun of the season, four of which have been on the road. For the year, Rike has a .298/.400/.617 line away from McCormick Field, but just a .257/.395/.343 line at the park that likes most other hitters. Apparently these two just don't get along. At any rate, Darin Holcomb, Warren Schaeffer and Everth Cabrera each chipped in two hits. Spence Nagy scored twice, but he also contributed three errors, which is why just one of the four runs he allowed were considered earned by Connor Graham. Graham lasted five innings,
and got plenty of support from Joey Williamson, Craig Baker and Edgmer Escalona.